


Young, but Just Us: A Young Justice Retrospective (Transcripts)

by SoleminiSanction



Series: DC Comics Meta & Nonfiction [1]
Category: DCU (Comics), Young Justice (Comics), Young Justice - All Media Types
Genre: Character Analysis, Fanwork Research & Reference Guides, Meta Essay, Nonfiction, Other, Plot analysis, Retrospective, YouTube
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-04
Updated: 2019-02-04
Packaged: 2019-09-06 21:21:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 20,385
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16840645
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SoleminiSanction/pseuds/SoleminiSanction
Summary: "When comparing the 2010s-era Young Justice cartoon with the late 90s comic of the same name, it’s not unreasonable to start with the question, 'What do they have in common?' And, as someone who knows both, it’s tempting to say, simply, 'The name,' and leave it at that. The two stories are vastly different entities. But if you boil them down to their essence, the core difference between them is…surprisingly simple.Young Justice the cartoon is a coming-of-age story. It’s about growing up.Young Justice the comic is a being-of-age story. It’s about being young.And that makes all the difference."---An archive of the original scripts from my ongoing video project, a VERY in-depth retrospective and literary analysis of the 1998 Young Justice comic book series. Links to the videos and YouTube channel available inside.





	1. Introduction

**Author's Note:**

> So yeah. I've been working on this project for a while, wanted to have the scripts available for ease of access and, with Tumblr committing platform suicide, needed a new place to archive them. Lucky day, the Archive isn't just for fic! Isn't it wonderful?
> 
> The full playlist for the series can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0tSS1Ol9FbI&list=PLj6QX5eqr2yprtKXvRhyPytimmmiBNA51
> 
> And I'll have links to every video in their own chapter. 
> 
> Comments/concrit and discussion all welcome both here and on YouTube.

_(Originally posted October 21, 2018._

_[Follow the YouTube link here](https://youtu.be/0tSS1Ol9FbI).)_

When comparing the 2010s-era _Young Justice_ cartoon with the late 90s comic of the same name, it’s not unreasonable to start with the question, “What do they have in common?” And, as someone who knows both, it’s tempting to say, simply, “The name,” and leave it at that.

The two stories are vastly different entities, varying wildly in terms of cast, scope, tone, pacing, setting, theme, design, relationships, character dynamics and overall intent. They’re the products of different mediums – one silent and still, the other animated and bombastic – and entered into very different worlds, both the real and the fictional. The superhero genre and the DC universe in particular has changed a lot in the last twenty years, as has the cultural understanding of what it means to be teenager and to write for and about teenagers.

But if you cut through all the extraneous details and boil these two entities down to their essence, the core difference between them is…surprisingly simple. Young Justice the cartoon is a coming-of-age story. It’s about growing up. Young Justice the comic is a being-of-age story. It’s about being young.

And that makes all the difference.

* * *

This will be a long series. Figured I should say that upfront. As of this recording, I have finalized all the scripts for the first volume of the recent Young Justice: Book One collected trade, and those currently clock in at a total of over 10,000 words spread across five videos.

Yes, I am a crazy person. But to be fair, this project has been gestating in me for literal years. _Young Justice_ was my first American superhero comic, the one that got me into the comics rather than the cartoons and movies I grew up with. And it’s still my favorite series, staring some of my all-time favorite characters from any medium and featuring some of my favorite scenes in any work of fiction ever. It’s my gold-standard of writing both for comics and for teenagers.

But those of you who only know the cartoon or who’ve simply never picked up this particular series are probably asking yourselves, ‘what could possibly be so special’?

After all, it’s not like DC hadn’t had teen superhero teams before this. The Teen Titans are one of the most iconic hero groups out there after the Avengers and the Justice League, and several characters from this book would eventually join and then go on to lead its later incarnations. But the thing is, a lot of the Teen Titans stories are, well…old. The original team formed in 1964 and you can tell. Silver Age stories weren’t exactly known for their complex plots or layered, diverse characters. And the state of mainstream “teen fiction” at the time wasn’t much better.

By the time superhero comics evolved to tell more complex ongoing stories, the Titans had grown up. Despite having Teen in the name, the cast of Marv Wolfman and George Perez’s _The New Teen Titans_ were almost all **actual** young adults, and their personal drama hinged on adult problems, like living on your own, holding down a job, deciding what you want to do with your life, exploring a fully-realized sexuality, getting married, and having kids. Not necessarily in that order.

_Young Justice_ , meanwhile, hit shelves in 1998, just after the release of the first two Harry Potter books. The landscape of genre fiction aimed specifically at teenagers was in the process of a major overhaul, building up to what some would call the second golden age of YA, in which serious genre explorations of teenage perspectives and themes began to enjoy mainstream success. This in turn led to serious academic consideration, pop culture prominence, big box office returns and a new, massive target audience eager for more material.

This is the market into which _Young Justice_ was introduced. While nearly of all its central characters came pre-established and some had been comic mainstays for over a decade, this would be the first time they were all brought together with the intent of creating a series that would appeal to younger readers. The end result was one of the most engaging, entertaining, and unexpectedly deep comic book series ever created, a series that is still beloved by its fans to this day, completely independent of its all-but-in-name-only animated counterpart.

But it’s okay if you don’t take my word for it right now. That’s what the retrospective is for. And with the third season of the cartoon on the horizon, as well as the in-between-quel comics and the recent news that we’ll soon be getting an all-new comic series set in the mainstream DC continuity and starring the original core four, now is as good a time as any to finally look back at the original series that started it all.

* * *

Keep in mind that, while I am going to be making some references to the cartoon, this is no way going to be a direct comparison, simply because the two works are such different creatures and I have to draw the line somewhere. That said, there are some comparisons that I really want to talk about — some based on individual episodes while others are more about thematic or character parallels — so if you enjoy my brand of in-depth literature analysis please consider subscribing to my channel and liking these videos before sharing them around to all your friends. This will be the only verbal shill in the main series, but I’ll have the links in every description and will be eternally grateful for any support you’re willing to offer. The less I have to rely on my day job, the more time I’ll have to work on this, and the more ‘side series’ videos I’ll be able to produce.

But this series, the main retrospective, is about the comics. _Young Justice_ was a regular ongoing comic series that spanned five years from September of 1998 to November of 2003. It contained fifty-five regularly numbered issues, a half-dozen specials, four volumes of prologue and numerous crossover events, some of which even featured the team on center stage. Despite its often irreverent tone and laid-back attitude, the adventures featured therein would ripple across the DC Universe for years, particularly in the relationships forged teammates, which would continue to shape the main cast even through universe resets and new timelines.

It was funny, it was tragic, it was all the best and worst memories of your nostalgic youth rolled into a single ongoing adventure, and it all started with a Secret.


	2. Book One, Part One: Secret Files

_(Originally posted October 21, 2018._

_[Follow the link to YouTube](https://youtu.be/lf69J7qbzbk))_

Before we get too far into things, I should take a moment to explain what a “Fifth Week Event” is, since they and other crossovers wound up shaping a fair bit of the team’s history. See, comic books come out on Wednesdays, and most individual titles run so that they release one issue per month. Thus, the easiest way to help your regular readers remember to pick up their books is to schedule things so that the same title comes out on the same Wednesday of every month. So, _Action Comics_ might come on the first Wednesday, _Detective Comics_ on the second, _Superman_ on the third, and _Batman_ on the fourth, just as an example.

But if you know anything about math and calendars, you’ve probably already noticed that this would account for only 48 out of 52 weeks every year – because there’s always four months out of the year that has five Wednesdays. Enter the fifth-week event, or “skip-week” events, limited-run comics that would come out to fill in the scheduling gaps.

The earliest of these tended to be loosely-affiliated groups of stand-alone issues sharing a single theme, such as 1998’s _GirlFrenzy!_ , a series of seven stand-alone one-shot issues focusing on DC’s female heroes. Most were associated with ongoing titles and spotlighted established characters – like _JLA: Tomorrow Woman_ and _Superman: Lois Lane_ – but the last of the run introduced a brand new character, and with her, brand new title: _Young Justice: The Secret #1_.

The issue begins with three young heroes – Robin (Tim Drake), Superboy (Kon-el), and Impulse (Bart Allen) – in separate interrogations, being debriefed on the events of a recent mission by shadowy unseen figures. This is, so far as I know, the first time we’d ever seen all three of these characters working together….as the focus of a book.

Technically, they all appeared together at the very beginning of that year in the 99th and 100th issues of Legion of Superheroes. But that wasn’t so much of a team-up of the trio as it was the three individually helping the Legion on various fronts.

Otherwise, Superboy and Robin had previously met in a two issue-mini-series called _World’s Finest Three_ in 1996, while Robin and Impulse teamed up that same year for an issue of _Plus_ comics, a series of one-shots based around throwing two heroes together for a stand-alone adventure. Superboy and Impulse met in 1997, in an issue of _Superboy and the Ravers_ which is…very 90s. Yeesh.

This is also the first time we see the art and coloring combo of Todd Nauck and Lary Stucker, which would come to be a defining part of the ongoing series. Young Justice’s on-going was unique in that it largely kept the same creative team for its entire run, which really helped the book develop its personality. And the big part of that is the art. In retrospect, some of it – including the shading, the jawlines and how bulky the adults are drawn – is very 90s, but that’s off-set by the exaggerated size of things like feet, hands and eyes. Yet, it also doesn’t skew entirely cartoony like, the art style used in Impulse’s solo title. It strikes a good balance between the two, as well as getting the teens heroes in a sweet spot where they look like young kids but not small children. It’s a perfect fit for what the series would grow to be, but that’s getting ahead of ourselves.

In their interrogations, the boys recount how they came together by chance and were semi-recruited by the D.E.O – the Department of Extranormal Operations, an organization within the DCU intended to deal with larger-than-human threats. They’re asked to recover an escaped gaseous monster capable of altering its toxicity at will. Robin cooks up a strategy using the others’ powers to scare the creature out and suck it into a bottle…only for the captured entity to stare back at them with the face of a teenage girl.

She pleads with them to let her go, explaining her backstory: that she’s been trapped in a D.E.O. orphanage with dozens of other superpowered children, and that the D.E.O. intendeds to kill her once she’s reclaimed. The boys opt to help her, since the D.E.O. had given them some not-so-subtle reasons to doubt the official story.

They use some smoke bombs and a chemical explosion to fake the unnamed girl’s death, setting her free to explore the world as she pleases. Since she’ll only stay free so long as she stays “dead,” the boys swear to each other to keep her “A Secret,” even lying flat-out to their JLA mentors – who were running the interrogation all along – to keep it.

I’m pretty sure that without this issue the entire _GirlFrenzy!_ event would have been completely forgotten – like most comic stunt events. But introducing Secret offered this snippet a bit of staying power. While most other team members – including the boys themselves – technically “belonged” to their own corners of the DCU and were therefore subject to the whims of other creators, Secret belonged to the team, leaving her free to be one of the book’s central emotional anchors for the length of its run. The story began with her and it would eventually end with her, too.

As for the boys, this stand-alone issue really displays why the three would go on to be such an iconic trio. Even though it’s out of focus and their personalities aren’t nearly as distinct as they would be in the main series, they’ve got a good team dynamic with enough tension to keep things interesting while still working together.

Overall, _The Secret #1_ proved a good taste of things to come and is probably the best introduction to what Young Justice the series would eventually be: it’s got the art, it’s got the tone, it’s got the repertoire and it doesn’t skew too heavily to the extremes of either drama or comedy. Which makes it all the stranger that the collected trade instead filed it after the event that came out two months later: the two-issue miniseries “JLA: World Without Grown-ups.”

* * *

_World Without Grown-Ups_ kicks off with thirteen-year-old brat named Matt Stuart getting a birthday present from his archeologist father: an ancient Atlantean artifact. Because, y’know, that sounds like a great present for a pre-teen.

Said artifact turns out to contain an ancient, all-powerful genie-thing, which the kid releases and is partially possessed by. And since the last thing in his head at the time was burning resentment against his parents, he naturally uses his newfound godly world-shaping powers to ‘wish’ (for lack of a better term) for the titular World Without Grown-ups.

Come the next morning, every child in the world has disappeared, leaving the adults – including the Justice League – freaking the hell out. While they panic, the residences of “Kidworld” find themselves without adults…and immediately begin running amok. Luckily for everyone involved, Kid-world means kid heroes, and we get this nice montage of teen do-gooders saving the day, including cameos from future team members.

Robin, Superboy and Impulse find each other in the chaos and decide to team up to essentially be the Justice League, since their mentors are all missing. They seek out Billy Batson, the teenaged true identity of adult hero Captain Marvel, who…isn’t much help, as he’s reluctant to assume his alter-ego out for fear that it might be suicide. But, while at his TV station a weather report points the trio to an unusual storm forming over Happy Harbor, Rhode Island – a small town best known as the location of Mount Justice, aka the Secret Sanctuary, the original JLA headquarters.

Matt – now going by the name “Bedlam” – has set up camp inside Mount Justice itself, though it’s never explained why. I mean, narratively it’s because that’s where YJ would set up their first headquarters, but Matt lived in Boston and I assume the “Secret Sanctuary” wasn’t too widely known because then it wouldn’t be, y’know, secret. But whatever. He’s there, and he’s turned the surrounding landscape into a nightmarish hell based on video games and cartoon characters – one that can seemingly be influenced by the boys’ thoughts as well, but to a much lesser extent.

Meanwhile, Billy Baston steels enough of his nerve to try saying his magic word, but instead of changing into Captain Marvel it takes him to a space between worlds. He manages to steer himself to the JLA Watchtower in adult world and point the Justice League to Happy Harbor. To be honest, aside from providing some exposition about how the two worlds work, the JLA is kinda superfluous. As we see heading back to Kidworld, the real point of this adventure is to showcase the three heroes who will become the YJ founders.

First, there’s a display of teamwork where they use a combination of strategy, speed and strength to get themselves out of a tight spot. Then, upon the realization that they’ve been tied into Bedlam’s powers basically just by being there, the three are separated to go solo up against their personal “worst possible villain…” as kids.

Get used to that, by the way, running into “Junior” versions of things is going to be kind of an ongoing theme.

For Superboy, that villain is Metallo, who is ironically one of the people he fought with Robin during his first meeting. Only, instead of having a kryptonite heart, Lil’ Metallo here is made entirely of Kryptonite, which says something about Superboy that we’ll get to in a second.

Impulse’s big enemy is Gorilla Grodd, but not in a super-intelligent gorilla way, just in a giant-monkey-chasing-him-up-a-building-like-King-Kong way. And Robin gets a tiny Joker doing a Hannibal Lecter impression.

They break free by utilizing a bit of mind-over-matter control over Bedlam’s magic to “tag out” and face each other’s villains. On paper these encounters are so quick and brief that you probably skip right past them without thinking, but I’m kinda here to overanalyze stuff so let’s take a second. Like I said, Metallo can be seen to represent Superboy’s brash views of danger, superheroics, and fighting in general – the greatest threat is the one thing that can hit him the hardest. But that same threat gets overcome by squishy, normal human Robin with a well-placed martial arts blow and a bit of mental control over the surroundings.

Bart’s encounter with Grodd is childish and overblown, embracing one of the Flash’s goofiest villains but not making use of the hyper-intelligence normally associated with him. Because, well, Bart can’t imagine something that intelligent. I don’t know for sure if this is the case, but I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that Bart hasn’t actually met Grodd up to this point. He just knows that there’s a Flash villain who’s a scary monkey and let his imagination fill in the rest. And, since he’s not very complicated, Superboy beats him with a flick of his finger.

Compare that to the Lil’ Joker encounter, which isn’t a fight at all. It’s just the Joker pelting Robin with his own insecurities. That’s not exactly creative, but it does amuse me, because it means that Tim is aware his self-depreciation is his biggest weakness, and yet it still gets to him. He tends to internalize and overthink thing, so something that gets into his head can really bother him even if he knows that’s what it’s trying to do. Which is why it’s hilarious when Bart wins the day by annoying Lil’ J into submission asking “Why?” over and over.

Taken together, these quick flashes neatly communicate the boys’ individual weaknesses and how their teamwork can overcome them. Which is kind of the point of this entire micro-series: to establish for the audience why you should want to follow their continuing adventures as a team.

From there the boys descend into Mount Justice, as do the League in the other world. On the adult side, they find…Captain Marvel, separate from Billy and being used as a conduit to focus Bedlam’s power and keep the Adult World in existence. There’s a moment of insecurity when they wonder what will happen to everyone living in Adult World the minute Cap wakes up and stops dreaming their dream, but again we’re not really here for this side of the adventure.

In Kid World, proto-YJ confronts Bedlam, where the little monster decides to let them destroy each other by tapping into their imaginations to produce what each of them would use to beat one of their friends.

Like with the Lil’ villains, each of these encounters says something about the boys in relationship to each other. Robin’s the most cerebral of the group, so you’d expect him to come up with some complicated plot…but it’s just a robot made of Kryptonite. Which is basically what Lil’ Metallo was. So, you could also say that it’s a refined version of a proven concept, one he’s seen the Kid be nearly beaten by twice before now. And it looks like an anime mech because Tim is not-so-secretly a giant nerd.

Superboy, on the other hand, is blunt and brash. It’s easy to think of him as a straightforward, raw power, punch-it-until-it-stops-moving kind of problem solver because, well, he is. But his method of beating Impulse isn’t violent at all: he restrains him, which cause Bart a lot of pain because he’s basically movement personified. This shows that Kon’s a lot more insightful than he lets on and hints that he’s actually got a lot of potential under all that bluster.

And then there’s Bart, who, when prompted to defeat Robin, conjures…ninjas. Which seems deceptively simple and lame, until Robin realizes that Impulse also clouded his mind, taking away his biggest advantage in a fight. Again, Impulse is cleverer than he seems, but his strategy also clues Robin in on what has to be done to dispel the threat: clearing their minds. And it works! Well…at least until Impulse’s ADHD kicks in.

Luckily, Bart does figure out a trick – thinking of his mind like resetting a game console – and manages to use that to disrupt Bedlam’s thoughts enough that Matt loses focus, which loosens the genie’s hold on his mind. Robin is then able to psychologize Matt into submission while Superboy keeps the genie at bay. At the same time, the JLA uses some kind of…prayer circle? with Captain Marvel to re-merge the two worlds…like I said, their part of the story’s kinda weak.

Matt goes catatonic and there’s a celebration all around, ending off with Batman – the most controlling and protective of the mentors – giving Robin permission to hang with his friends, and the boys declaring that they make a great a team.

_World Without Grown-Ups_ has a killer premise, which is probably why it got used for episodes of both the _Young Justice_ cartoon and _Justice League Unlimited_. It’s kid-lit 101: if you want your younger heroes in the spotlight, taking the adults out of the picture is an easy trick. I’ve seen people call this a “plot tailored to the powers” for Captain Marvel, but like I said in the review, his half of the story is more about exposition and world-building, explaining the story so the three proto-YJ members can focus on the resolution.

My favorite moment in the whole thing comes when the boys are wandering through the maze Bedlam has made of Mount Justice. They stumble upon a portrait of the original Justice League. Robin and Superboy quickly move on, but Impulse lingers behind, staring at the picture of his namesake and grandfather: the silver-age Flash, Barry Allen. This uncharacteristic moment of calm and stillness shows how Bart, despite how reckless and carefree he seems on the outside, feels the weight of his heroic legacy just as strongly as his friends.

One of the most unique aspects of Young Justice was how nearly all of its original members were, in one form or another, legacy heroes — that is, either descended from or voluntarily taking on the former identity of a previously-established figure. This is a team made of the second Superboy, the third Robin, a third-generation speedster and, eventually, both the second Wonder Girl and second “Miss Arrowette.” With all that plus the team’s heavily implied initial conception as a “Junior Justice League,” you can imagine how important the theme of legacy would be to the ongoing story.

Hell, I’d argue that it’s a primary theme, and one that sets Young Justice apart from other superhero teams, especially the Teen Titans. But for now let’s table that discussion — there’s a much better place for it later on.

For now, suffice it to say that neither _The Secret_ nor _World Without Grown-ups_ explores that theme in detail, but they do lay a solid groundwork for the series to come and do a lot to sell the readers on the core trio that make up the foundation of the team. Luckily, for those readers intrigued by the “prologue” but otherwise unfamiliar with the young heroes, DC prepared a primer from the mouths of the writers who knew them best and that’s what we’ll be picking things up, next time.


	3. Book One, Part Two: Origins

_(Originally posted November 5, 2018._

_[Follow the link to YouTube](https://youtu.be/h8rv7mfhxtY))_

By all indications, _World Without Grown-Ups_ led directly into the ongoing series, but before that we’re going to cover one more thing. _Secret Origins: 80-page Giant #1_ was released in December at the very end of 1998. It technically takes place sometime after the first three issues of the ongoing series, but we’re going to talk about half of it here because its purpose is to clue new readers into the, well, origins of our heroes. I figure anyone who’s not familiar with these kids might have some questions, especially if you’re only know with their cartoon versions.

* * *

First up is Impulse, aka Bartholomew Allen II. Bart comes from the 30th century because his grandfather – the silver-age Flash – lived there for a time with his wife Iris before his death in Crisis on Infinite Earths. Iris stayed in the far future and bore twins, one of whom went on to father Bart. Bart inherited his family’s superspeed pretty much from birth, but he couldn’t control it, leading him to live and age at a hyper-accelerated rate. So he’s only been alive for three years, but he’s technically fifteen. The only way he could live a semi-normal life was through virtual reality, which is where he spent most of his childhood.

When it became clear that this would eventually kill him, Iris brought him back to the 20th century so his cousin Wally, the third Flash, could snap him out of it. He was then put under the supervision of Max Mercury, the “Zen Master of Speed,” who would act as pretty much the best father figure and mentor the kid would ever have.

What sets Bart the most apart from his friends is that, unlike the other boys, he’s one hundred per cent genuine.

As we’ll discuss in a moment, Robin and Superboy start off the comic with a lot of – for lack of a better term – "fronting." Ie, they both cultivate exaggerated personas in an attempt to project a certain image to their peers. Which is a very teenager thing to do; it’s why literally all of us have incredibly embarrassing memories of our school years.

But Bart doesn’t front. That’s what makes him hard for some people to deal with. Most kids who act the way that Bart does are assumed to be putting on an act for the attention it gets them. This is not always true, especially if they’re on the autism spectrum, but it’s most often assumed.

Bart is not autistic — not officially, anyway. But the circumstances of his upbringing have a similar effect, right down to his inability to maintain any kind of persona. He even has trouble concealing his secret identity, and a big part of his solo comic involves Max trying to convince him that he can’t be Impulse all the time and should desire some measure of a normal life. Which, interestingly, means that while the others see YJ as a place to be a bit more like regular kids while still embracing their superhero identities, for Bart it’s where he can cut loose and be exactly the sort of Impulse that he wants to be, instead of his well-meaning mentors trying to guilt him into more retrained behavior.

As such, his growth as a character is mostly provoked from the outside, which makes it a little hard to foreshadow without spoiling. Suffice it to say that as cartoon-y and down for the chaos as he is, he’s eventually forced to confront realities that he’s not really equipped to deal with and he has to grow as a person to move past them, including learning how to better connect with other people. And I know that sounds really vague, but it’s mostly because his more serious story turns come later in the series. Early on, with the exception of some weird power hiccups, he acts as more of a comedic force of nature that the others react to, with glimmers of cleverness in the heat of battle that lay the groundwork for things to come later on.

* * *

Next up is Superboy. Superboy…is not Kryptonian. Not even a little. DC had this policy at the time where only Superman, as the Last Son of Krypton, was allowed to have even a trace of Kryptonian DNA. So even though Superboy was a clone designed to take Superman’s place in the event of his death, he was actually a completely human clone who’d been genetically modified to--

Hey, wait a minute.

If he’s not Kryptonian, why would he be affected by Kryptonite? And he is, he definitely is, that’s why Lil’ Metallo was such a threat. Plus, I’m pretty sure Tim clocked him with a Kryptonite ring during their first team-up. Motherfuck, am I going to have to go through Reign of the Supermen now too? The research for this project I swear…

_**[BEEEEEP PLEASE STAND BY BEEEEEP]** _

Okay, so. Apparently, that fight with Robin was the first time Superboy had ever been exposed to Kryptonite, and that’s when he finds out that his human DNA had been modified so much that he does have weakness to it. Not that it kills him it just makes him weak and violently ill. None of this is in the Secret Origins, by the way, it was just going to bug me until I figured it out.

Anyway. Superboy is a human clone, genetically engineered to mimic most of Superman’s abilities primarily though his own unique power, Tactile Telekinesis – basically, the ability to psychically manipulate anything with a physical mass, including himself. He was created by Project Cadmus, specifically their very corrupt director, to take Superman’s place after his death, but was freed ahead of schedule by a group called the Newsboy Legion. Who are, apparently, also clones? Comics are weird.

By the time Young Justice gets together he’s spent several years living it up in Hawaii as a superhero celebrity, but recently gone back to working with Cadmus – now, thankfully, under new management. And, at some point during his five-year career he contracted a disease that only targets clones (one of several he’d suffer during his life) and the resulting procedure to save his life stuck him at sixteen years old, apparently forever.

Like I said before, the thing to remember with Kon is that a lot of his posturing is just an act. Yes, he is genuinely confident to the point of arrogance, an incorrigible flirt, competitive with the other boys, and prone to both bragging about and showing off his array of awesome powers, especially the Tactile Telekinesis. But he’s just as often caught out, startled into dropping the act and revealing the sincere, awkward, uncertain teenager underneath. And, as time goes on, his act starts to lighten up around his teammates. For example, when the girls are first introduced, he spends a few issues brazenly flirting, only to drop it almost completely by the time the team gets fully settled

In that way, he’s a lot like normal teenage boys, acting out a form of aggressive masculinity that he’s been sold by culture and the media because that’s what they think they’re supposed to be. It’s only worsened by the fact that Superboy is a literal manufactured pop star designed to be the ‘hip young Superman for the 90s.’ And as the series begins, that’s all he has. Unlike Impulse, no one has ever pushed him to having a normal teenage life. He’s got no secret identity, no real private life, no future to plan for, not even a name — the issue of his solo series where Superman gives him the Kryptonian name ‘Kon-el’ didn’t come out until a full five months into the Young Justice run.

And that’s where his story lies: figuring out an identity for himself beyond what was designed for him. In a sense, he doesn’t just want to be Superboy, he wants to be a real boy, with a real name and an identity beyond his powers. And this is partly because he’s still one hundred per cent on board with someday growing up to be the real Superman…assuming he ever gets to grow up at all. Because as he’s gradually starting to understand, even Superman isn’t Superman all the time.

* * *

Last for this video, but certainly not least, we have the third Robin, Tim Drake. Tim is…my favorite superhero. Ever. And he’s one of my favorite characters of all time. I am trying so, so hard not to be biased.

Tim’s story starts where Robin’s does, with the death of Dick Grayson’s parents. Tim was in the audience, saw Batman lead Dick away, and developed a bit of an obsession. After collecting clippings and photos for years, he figured out Robin’s identity based on some news footage and from there ID’ed Batman. Following the death of the second Robin, Jason Todd, he became convinced that Batman needed Robin to keep him stable and tried to convince Dick to resume the role. When Dick refused, Tim stole the suit to help in a case and convinced Bruce to take him on. He went through months of training and even the death of his mother before at last earning his wings by helping Bruce out against the Scarecrow.

I haven’t been talking about the framing stories around these origins, but I really like that Robin’s has him hanging out in Nightwing’s apartment doing the brother thing. It’s cute, and it also ties in to the major ongoing themes of legacy and family.

Another fun detail: these mini-stories are presented as part of a larger framing story in which Secret arrives at Mount Justice and talks with Red Tornado about how other young heroes get by in the world. And the last page of each origin includes a wisp of smoke or steam implied to be Secret observing the various events. It’s a nice touch.

I’ve heard a lot of people claim that Tim in particular is “out of character” in YJ, since he appears as mostly a normal guy in his solo title but is often characterized in the team book as a “Junior Batman.” But I firmly reject that opinion as misinformed, and here’s why:

Just like with Superboy, the persona of “Robin” is clearly an act and one that his friends regularly call him out on, usually by taking the piss out of him. You can’t go more than an issue or two without gags like, “I can tell you were trained by the World’s Greatest Detective” or arguments spawned from his use of the act to keep emotional distance.

And it’s not like this came out of nowhere: his solo title makes it very clear Tim actively tries to act like Batman while in costume and practices his Robin persona when he’s alone to maintain it. But that series is told almost entirely from Tim’s perspective, often complete with interior monologue, and thus every moment of uncertainty, goofiness and fucking up is on full display. Those same scenes come back in YJ all the time; it just doesn’t get the same kind of focus in a team book’s unique limited-third-person-plural point of view.

Likewise, at around this same time, Tim would appear in books like _Birds of Prey_ , _Nightwing_ , _Catwoman_ and even some _Batman_ storylines as more childish and vulnerable, because all those books were told from the perspective of older heroes who view him as surrogate son, a younger brother, or a child to be protected. It’s one of those things that’s really great about expanded universes: getting to see these characters from multiple perspectives that offer unmatched opportunity for nuance and depth.

Moreover, recognizing that “Robin, Master Detective and Protege of The Batman” is an act, and a deliberate one, is vital to understanding Tim’s character within the pages of YJ. The word of the day is compartmentalization, which is a thing Tim has to do to keep his double lives as separate as possible. It’s always been a facet of his character, but _Young Justice_ is where it gets strained to the breaking point. Everyone else on the team is very open about their secret identities, and about hanging out in their civilian clothes or visiting each others’ houses and bitching about their parents. Tim isn’t allowed to be part of that camaraderie, isn’t even allowed to tell them his first name or show them his face; nor can he go home and tell his dad about all the fun he’s had with his friends. That’s incredibly isolating, and it clearly weighs on him as much as it strains his relationships with the others.

This is one of the few elements that the animated series tried to incorporate, but it doesn’t work as well there because “The Team” is more of a professional setting where there’s an expectation of distance, and also literally everyone except Kid Flash is keeping a more dangerous secret of their own.

Whereas with Tim, it represents a real issue, with the expectations of his mentor getting in the way of the friendship that he wants for himself. Which, in a way, is the same struggle faced by the others: finding a balance between what authority figures expect of you, what you expect for yourself, and reality is a fundamental part of growing up. And the first step in doing so is claiming the space you need to explore and understand things for yourself.

* * *

The Super Giant also includes an origin for Robin’s then-girlfriend Spoiler…for some reason. I think at some point in the book’s development she may have been intended to join the team, but at the time this was all coming together she was actually retiring the cape…because she was pregnant. And no, Robin was not the father; she had an asshole ex-boyfriend that she eventually punched. She’d get back in the game later on but that’s way down the line.

There’s two other origins in this book, but we’ll be saving those for next time. For now, we’ve got our trio, we’ve got our headquarters, and when you hear from me again, we’ll kick things off by finally getting our team name, as the ongoing adventures of Young Justice begin.


	4. Book One, Part Three: Boys Will Be Boys

_(Originally posted November 19, 2018_

_[Follow the link to YouTube](https://youtu.be/STn5LKilGbs))_

You only need one word to sum up the first three issues of the YJ ongoing series, and that is **goofy**. Whereas _The Secret_ had been fairly serious and self-contained and _World Without Grown-Ups_ used childish goofiness mainly to contrast the more down-to-earth adult side, _Young Justice_ issues one through three (plus one, but we’ll get to that) are straight up silly. They are, in fact, so silly that if you’re reading the collected trade you might be tempted to skip over them…but in doing so you’d miss a lot of set-up, as there’s a surprising number of details here that turn out to be call-forwards to future events.

Issue One opens presumably right after the events of _World Without Grown-Ups_ , with Robin, Superboy and Impulse camping out in the now-empty Secret Sanctuary in Happy Harbor. At this point in time, the Sanctuary had most recently been occupied by a time-displaced Legion of Superheroes, but had since been mothballed and was used primarily as a storage site for the JLA. As established here it’s been loaned out to the boys for their fledgling, currently unnamed try at a super-team.

While goofing around, the boys find what they think is a statue but turns out to actually be Red Tornado, who for some reason doesn’t get an origin in the Secret Files despite being probably the single most important adult influence on the book. Short version is, he’s an Air Elemental who should have had a human host but wound up in a robot instead. He has a human nature and personality, but sometimes loses touch with it, as he had here: he’d put himself in storage some years earlier because he believed his humanity to be gone forever, which meant he had no reason to continue existing.

But! Then the boys showed up, and their horsing around in the Sanctuary has re-inspired his human emotions…specifically annoyance.

To show his gratitude, RT tags along while the boys investigate a mysterious artifact at a local archeology dig. There we’re introduced to the secret agent duo of Donald Fite and Ishido Maad, aka Fite ‘n’ Maad, of “APES,” the All-Purpose Enforcement Squad, a “Multi-national Co-operative Task Force” with “More clearance than God.”

Also on-site is a news reporter, Ace Atchinson – the guy who inadvertently gives Young Justice their name – and an archeologist, Dr. Nina Dowd, transformed by the mysterious artifact into The Mighty Endowed, a supervillain who hypnotizes men with her enormous…tracts of land. Which are so big that she can’t stand up on her own and is easily defeated by her own body weight. And she got turned into this because of a booby trap.

And it’s here where I should mention that writing duties have been officially handed over to Peter David, famed for his acclaimed work on The Incredible Hulk, Spiderman 2099, and The Atlantis Chronicles, among many others. He is also a man who truly loves his puns. So, so many puns.

David, Todd Nauck and Larry Stucker would be the primary creative team for the entire ongoing, giving the overall book a much more consistent feel than you’d usually expect over the course of five years. I’d also credit their teamwork with the book’s tone, which is a huge part of its appeal. In a way, it’s got much more in common with the _Teen Titans_ animated series – the original one – than with Young Justice cartoon. Remember how _Teen Titans_ could bounce from a light-hearted adventure against, like, the Mad Mod or Mumbo Jumbo, to the really dark shit, like Robin’s drugged-out PTSD flashback? Yeah, YJ walks the same kind of line, only here the cartoony exaggeration is flavored more by American animation and humor comics than the anime and manga of _Teen Titans_.

Anyway, the artifact that made the Mighty Endowed turns out to be some kind of bizarre, futuristic vehicle which they (read: Superboy) immediately start calling “the Supercycle,” though to me it’s always looked more like a dune buggy with a trailer. Robin accidentally activates it and gets stuck in the driver’s seat, literally, which means that, despite the boys’ best efforts, they’re all on-board when it suddenly takes off, and Issue One ends with them shooting off into the stratosphere.

* * *

Issue Two doesn’t have nearly as much foreshadowing and it’s much goofier, so we’re going to take this fast: the cycle drags the boys around the world at a ridiculously fast speed, accidentally solving and kinda causing some minor disasters, including one involving the Titanic II (huh) and another featuring nuns with a station wagon full of explosives.

They’re rejoined by Red Tornado and zero in, thanks to the Cycle’s homing system, on the palace of a sheik (don’t ask) named Ali Ben Styn (yes, really) where…okay, Fite ‘n’ Maad, I know you’re being established as recurring antagonists right now, but how the hell did you get here? You were in Rhode Island like, an hour ago. This is the middle east and…oh, never mind. Superheroes.

The Cycle releases what appeared to be a giant statue but instead turns out to be a multi-armed giant warrior called Riproar, apparently imprisoned there by the gods of New Genesis, who are a very long story that we don’t have time to cover here seriously Google is your friend. Said gods also turn out to be the creators of the Supercycle, which apparently people more well-versed in comics than me would have known right off the bat because a previous Supercycle had been the ride of choice for Jack Kirby’s Forever People.

There’s a rip-roaring fight (oh god now I’m doing it) that ends with Riproar and Robin pulling a “Let Him Choose” moment with the Supercycle – which turns out to be sentient, because New God tech shuddup. The cycle hilariously chooses Robin, Riproar’s temper tantrum gets him buried in lava, and the sheik offers the boys a reward for saving his life. Put a pin in that in that; it and the New Gods stuff will be important much later on.

* * *

Issue Three is a Halloween special. It amuses the hell out of me, because it’s a self-contained stand-alone that goes so off the rails that it feels like it should be non-canon, but it gets referenced outside this series, thus its canonicity is indisputable.

So it’s Halloween, and under the cover of costumes and candy there’s cultists doing their thing. Techno-magic cultists. Techno-magic cultists circa 1998, which means there’s COBOL involved. And probably AOL. Kids, ask your parents.

It backfires within three panels and the cultists get fried, but their attempt does manage to summon something into the real world via a dot-matrix printer. Cut to a school gym, where the boys are hosting a community party full of teens who are clearly older than them. Side note, this little adventure is titled “The Issue Before the One Where the Girls Show Up.” Gotta love that self-aware humor.

As is probably to be expected, the boys of YJ hosting a party leads to a fair few harmless but entertaining shenanigans, which then give way to not-so-harmless shenanigans as some party guests turn old and others are forced to dance without being able to stop. Yup, the summoned entity has arrived, and if he looks familiar it’s only because he should. This mischievous little punk is fifth-dimensional imp and recurring Superman villain Mr. Mxyzptlk.

**_*buzzer*_ **

Mxyzptlk?

_***buzzer*** _

Mxyzptlk!

_***buzzer*** _

Screw you, I’m calling him Mister Mixy. Although “Mister” might not be word to use here because, as Robin soon notes, this Mixy insists on being called ‘Professor,’ insists that Mxyzptlk is not his name and is much younger than he should be. But, in this rare case, it’s not that Mixy’s been made younger, it’s that this is a younger Mixy, one from earlier in his own timeline.

Upon realizing this, Superboy confronts Mixy with the knowledge that his future self will be a major pain in Superman’s ass, which young Mixy finds irrational and “banal.” He vows to never indulge in such things, dedicating his life purely to science and learning, which of course immediately transforms the world outside the gym into a into a nightmarish hellscape of destruction and fire.

Aaand I’m gonna stick this counter down here in the corner, no real reason, just ignore it for now.  
**“Went to Hell” Counter: 1**

Luckily, this whole affair is quickly resolved by showing Mixy some Three Stooges films and then a goofy-looking nerd, which makes him laugh until his hair turns white. He pops off back to his timeline and the world returns to normal, save for a Mixy-themed carnival in the town outside. Cue the studio laugh track aaaaand fade to black.

* * *

These three starter adventures are not deep, and most of what really matters about them isn’t going to come into play for a while yet. Issue 3 in particular seems to be killing time more than anything else, probably because their deadlines came up while negotiations were still going on about who would make up the roster and how. So there isn’t a lot to analyze, but I do want to talk about the name for the series and how it came about both in- and out-of universe.

Based on the early references scattered across the DCU in build-up for their premier, it seems clear that “Young Justice League” was originally going to be the team name and series title. I’ve not been able to find any official reason for why the “League” portion was dropped, but I have guesses:

One, _Young Justice_ just sounds better, less clunky and less, uh, ‘Silver Age-y.’ If you told me this was the result of test audience feedback, I would not be surprised.

More importantly, dropping the “League” speaks to a shift in the team’s intention. The “Young Justice League” or “Justice League Junior” are names that scream “Sidekick Club,” implying that they would be an off-shoot of the Justice League, maybe even under the League’s direct supervision. And maybe that’s how the team was originally conceived; a similar idea was pitched early in development for the Justice League cartoon. But by the time the series got going, Young Justice was decidedly not affiliated with the Justice League, despite using their old HQ as a clubhouse.

Hence the explanation in-universe: Bart’s repeated insistence that the team is young, comma, just us. Which, incidentally, is the name of that first adventure and , as you may have noticed, this retrospective. At this point, they’re not even technically a team — they’re just having a sleepover, with some banter about forming a team getting thrown around. They’re just a bunch of kids. And you’d be amazed how much that winds up defining the tone and themes of the series, even after they officially come together and add to their membership.

* * *

Now, Issue Four is the one where the girls show up, and where these wacky adventures start to take on a new layer of nuance, so while we’ve just got the three boys there’s one more issue we need to talk about: _Young Justice #1,000,000_ , part of the _DC One Million_ event that ran at the end of 1998. The basic premise saw the Justice League from over eighty thousand years in the future come back in time to recruit the modern JLA for a series of celebratory games that almost immediately went tits up. In practice, the real fun was in giving every comic active at the time a special “Number One Million” tie-in issue, some of them direct continuations of the mini-series but others simply stand-alones that play with the far-out premise.

Young Justice One Million is one of those, featuring the three members of the Young Justice Legion S meeting up in their secret headquarters, which is full of neat statues hinting at a few incoming team members and some who are from much further in the future. First to arrive the one millionth clone of Superboy who is basically our Superboy with a stupid haircut.

Next is Robin the Toy Wonder, easily my favorite concept in this entire hypothetical future. Robin here is a robot, built by the far-future Batman with a personality based on Batman himself as a child. It is the most on-the-nose metaphor for the role of Robin to ever be and I love it.

The third member, naturally, is Impulse, who here is, quote, “thought to be the personification of the random thoughts of speedsters who traveled through the Speed Force.” Which seems like appropriately flash-y nonsense. Whatever he is, he’s made of energy and appears capable of physically jumping in to peoples’ minds, as he does with Superboy.

They’ve gathered in their secret clubhouse because Robin has recovered a cryogenic chamber containing an, “Original Member of Young Justice.” Complete with the logo. They don’t know who it is, so they set up a revival program to de-frost him, and in the mean-time they tell stories supposedly of their predecessors’ adventures in the 20th century. Which actually means retelling major event comics so that they’re a central part of the narrative.

Superboy kicks things off with _The Death of Superman_ , or at least a version where Superboy single-handedly kills Doomsday…by shoving the entire planet out from under his feet. For Robin, I think it’s Zero Hour with a side of random Gotham events, like the earthquake from _Cataclysm_ and Batman breaking his back, all done in a style reminiscent of the DC animated universe. Which is really adorable – I’ve always liked their tiny scrappy version of Tim. And I think Impulse’s might be a reference to Millennium, but I haven’t read Millennium yet so I don’t actually know. He might also just be retelling the first few issues of Young Justice, only end off with a visit from the Millennium Chicken.

The storytellers then get into argument over what kind of “Millennium” animal it was, get into a fight over the defrosting controls, and…vaporize the YJ member in the tube. The boys (for given value of “boy”) decide to just keep this whole embarrassing incident to themselves and talk wistfully about how their namesakes were ‘legendary’ and they’re ‘standing in the footsteps of giants’…and also the Millennium Chicken.

 _DC One Million_ was presented as a celebration of the DC Universe as it existed at that time, and its ultimate message was that it all mattered. That the heroes weren’t just people, they were icons, symbols worthy of lasting respect; and that their adventures weren’t just meaningless struggles, but climatic events that history would remember, even if the details got lost along the way. And yeah, in retrospect, the fact that some of the participants couldn’t even survive the 90s can make that idea seem pretty silly — lookin’ at you _Resurrection Man_. But when it works, it works, and _Young Justice_ is one of the best examples, because those themes of legacy and a hopeful future are built in to the DNA of the series.

From _The Secret_ and _World Without Grown-Ups_ on, there’s this steady subtext through YJ that these kids are the new generation of heroes. Even if they’re far from ready now, someday they are going to be the Justice League, hence their original team name. And that’s presented as a good thing, a hopeful future not just for them but for the world. _One Million_ , by the happy coincidence of coming out early in the series’ run, helped to solidify that.

It’s a theme that’s only going to grow stronger and more nuanced as the team roster grows, as we’ll be seeing for ourselves next time, when the girls finally show up.


	5. Book One, Part Four: In Which the Girls Do No Harm

_(Originally posted December 3, 2018._

_[Follow the YouTube link here](https://youtu.be/VnortEkGrFo).)_

So yeah, remember how I said YJ could be both funny and dark? Behold, page one of issue four: a teenage girl shot through the shoulder by her own arrow in a dark, dingy alley.

This is Arrowette, Cissie King-Jones, originally introduced in an issue of Bart’s ongoing solo series. Despite the arrow motif and her archery skills, she’s actually not related to the Green Arrow “family” over in Star City – but her mother was.

Sort’ve.

See, Bonnie King was the original Miss Arrowette – back in the 60s, when she was introduced in the pages of _World’s Finest_. She was an Olympic-level archer inspired to fight crime by Green Arrow and Speedy, and appeared in a couple of stories alongside them before Green Arrow’s Silver Age career kind of petered out. When Bonnie re-appeared in the pages of Impulse, she’d turned into a violently obsessive, chain-smoking superhero stage mom forcing Cissie to live out her dreams for her.

Bart’s mentor Max Mercury, Zen Master of Speed and one of the most level-headed people to ever wear a mask, did not approve and reported Bonnie to child services. Cissie was taken out of her mother’s care and sent to an all-girl’s boarding school, though she continues her superhero career on her own time and with the full, begrudging knowledge of her therapist. This is her first appearance since then, outside of the _Secret Files & Origins_ introduction, and as we can see things have taken a turn for the worse.

Cissie’s been cornered in an alley by a new villain named Harm. It’s clear that he could kill her, but instead taunts her a bit before striding off, leaving her to collapse and be picked up by a mysterious flying vehicle.

We cut to Spain, specifically the Running of the Bulls, where the boys are catching a pleasantly goofy Villain of the Week. They’re confronted in the wrap-up by Fite ‘n’ Maad, who briefly question them over the whereabouts of…“The Bottle Girl.” Naturally, they feign ignorance and swiftly G-T-F-O via Supercycle, only for Superboy to find “a lot” of blood staining the back seat.

Cut again to a playground, presumably in Gateway City, California, where a bunch of bullies beating up a cat are getting their asses kicked by the team’s final member: WONDER GIRL, aka Cassandra Sandsmark. Full disclosure: I. Love. Cassie. She is so cool.

She comes from the pages of _Wonder Woman_ , naturally enough, being the second non-Diana teen to take the name after Donna Troy. She’s basically a Wonder Woman fangirl who met Diana through her mom’s work as a museum curator. After helping Wonder Woman out on a couple of fights using borrowed powers from some magical artifacts, Cassie managed to follow Diana to Olympus, where she asked Zeus himself to give her superpowers…so now Diana would have to train her as Wonder Girl despite her mother’s objections.

But, those powers came with a catch — namely, that Cassie’s mother could turn them off at will simply by forbidding her to use them. Which became a problem the one time her mother got possessed by Morgan le Fey, a revelation which happened to come during a trip to hell. 

**“Went to Hell” Counter: 2**

So that’s Wonder Girl’s big weakness, though it really isn’t brought up in the series to my knowledge. Cassie also received one of Donna Troy’s many Wonder Girl costumes as a gift…but you’ll notice that it’s not the costume she’s wearing in the present. Put a pin in that for later.

After rescuing the cat and getting scratched for her trouble, Cassie meets Secret, presumably fresh from her appearance as the framing device for _Secret Origins: 80-page Giant #1_. She wants to introduce Cassie to the boys and Cassie, who has a huge celebrity crush on Superboy, agrees without hesitation.

Back in the cave, the boys find Arrowette down in medbay and patch her up while Cissie explains how Harm lured her out, wanting to send ‘Young Justice’ the message that they should stay out of his way. This gets Superboy’s hackles raised and he shoots off to find Harm in a Batmobile knock-off picking a fight with Wonder Girl and Secret. The three then proceed to get their asses kicked until the police run Harm off. The full team unites at the Cave for the first time, where Secret announces the reason she was trying to bring everyone together: to recuse a group of beings “just like her” before it’s too late.

So yeah, Issue Four is basically a lot of set-up for things to come and it’s not the smoothest writing. You can tell at the end that they ran out of space and it’s so obvious that this and Issue Five were intended to be a more seamless two-part adventure that then got interrupted by what’s coming up next. Like I mentioned last time, I have the sneaking suspicion that YJ went through a lot of re-tooling very close to its publication date. It seems very likely to me that when the early issues were produced they were still negotiating with various editors about what the girls’ roles in the story would be, and that they floated at least two different possibilities for how the whole gang was going to get together.

And they just decided to make both, one with the main creative team and one completely separate that they then had to awkwardly squeeze in, which is as good a transition as any to start talking about _Young Justice Secret Files & Origins #1_. Which is different from the _Secret Origins 80-page Giant_ , but it’s okay if you’re confused. I’m pretty sure the editors were too.

* * *

_Secret Files & Origins_, written by D. Curtis Johnson with art by Alé Garza — apologies if I’ve pronounced that wrong — opens with the team approaching Secret’s old D.E.O. holding facility under cover of darkness. They break in, being observed every step of the way by the two D.E.O. officers from _The Secret #1_. They talk about laying a trap for the kids as they break inside, which seems to be sprung when YJ stumbles on illusions of the Justice League who attack them. Only, it turns out this isn’t the trap — it’s a attempt by two of the inmates, a pair of young psychics, to warn them away from the trap, though the girl who cast the illusion says she doesn’t know what could have made her attempt at gaining their trust turn violent.

With the girls’ help, the team teleports into the facility’s server room, where they uncover a dossier that the D.E.O. has collected on the team members, as well as the Justice League and some of their villains. Robin does his hacking to send those to the Justice League and screw with security while the others lead a jail break of the miserable prisoners in the lower cells. This comes as a shock to their two helpers, who willingly volunteered to be trained by the D.E.O. and didn’t realize there were others being held here against their will.

Everybody works together for a big jail break, during which Young Justice loads all the escapees up into two stolen vans and fly away into the distance. Their two buddies stay behind because hey, they volunteered for this, and talk about how they’re totally going to rock it as superheroes one day before getting into the D.E.O.’s van and, to my knowledge, never being seen again.

To be blunt, this special isn’t bad per say, but it also doesn’t matter and the entire series would’ve been better off without it. It’s definitely the first thing that would be cut in any adaption. Its most defining trait is how it feels like it should be a big deal and then…isn’t. As far as I know we never see these two kids again, nor the other escapees, and while it kind of adds to Secret’s personal story it also really doesn’t.

It doesn’t help that this is clearly the weaker of the two “how the gang got together” stories, in no small part because it feels very derivative of Raven gathering the New Teen Titans to eventually oppose her father Trigon. I mentioned in Part One that Secret would be the string tying the group together, but this really isn’t what I meant and it also doesn’t suit the overall story for reasons we’ll be discussing next time. For now, suffice it to say that while “uniting for a common goal” can be a great origin for superhero teams, it’s not what Young Justice is about and, frankly, if it wasn’t for the teases previously laid out about Secret’s goals and motivations, this could easily have been skipped.

* * *

The main story picks back up with Issue Five, which opens with Harm attacking Red Tornado in the Secret Sanctum and driving a sword through the android’s chest. Young Justice return from their adventure with the D.E.O. riding the Supercycle — which I just now realized wasn’t featured in the special at all, adding credence to my “inserted at the last minute” theory. They return to the Secret Sanctum to find their “adult supervision” missing, and a recording from Harm left behind on the monitors as a clear indication of foul play.

Since Harm’s recording is repeating the words “Holy Beatles, kids!” over and over again, the team initially concludes that he must be plotting something at a large “Beatles convention” happening in nearby Happy Harbor. That is until Robin remembers that they’re being written by Peter David and instead points them to a midnight mass being lead by and held in honor of Pope John-Paul II. Because the Beatles were bigger than Jesus.

The mass is attacked by Red Tornado under Harm’s control, while Harm jumps Wonder Girl as she tries to get the Pope to safety. He tells her there’s a bomb in Red Tornado, and most of the team detours to get rid of it while Robin insists on facing Harm one-on-one. Harm gets the drop on Robin, who is saved by the timely intervention of Arrowette, while the tag-team of Secret and Impulse manages to remove the bomb from Red Tornado without hurting him, though it explodes several stories in mid-air before Impulse can quite disarm it.

The team returns back to the Secret Sanctum…to find the Justice League waiting for them and demanding some explanations.

But that’s not quite the end.

See, all through these two issues we’ve been getting brief cut-aways to a married couple, Burt and Ellen, discussing their seventeen-year-old son Billy…who turns out to be Harm, a blatant sociopath who terrorizes them both with death threats and once tried to slice open his father’s neck. When Harm returns home at the end of the issue, his mother is out of the house, but his father is waiting up. He goes on about his motivations again, telling Burt all about how he’s a “super-villain in self-training” and that “practicing on his peers” is his first step in becoming “the greatest villain of all.” So, to stop that from happening, Burt pulls out a gun…and shoots his son dead, right there in the family kitchen.

* * *

Harm is a perfect team antagonist for YJ because he embodies a twisted reflection of traits they all share. He’s an aspiring villain without a mentor who revels in the power that doing evil can bring him and delights in the prospect of using that power to torment the people under his influence. He’s a bully. His parents are terrified of him and for all his posturing about someday being the world’s greatest villain, he’s deliberately targeting a bunch of kids who are younger than him rather than going after, say, the Titans, who might present a true threat.

But then he’s taken down like a chump when one of his presumed victims takes a step that neither he nor the audience could have predicted, especially not this early on. I don’t think it’ll surprise any of you to learn that this isn’t the last time we’ll see Harm, but that doesn’t stop this last page from being genuinely chilling and intriguing even though none of our heroes are involved. As funny and light-heart as this series can be, Harm is no joke, just like Cissie said at the beginning.

And let’s talk about Cissie, the young Miss Arrowette, who is — so far as I’m concerned — one of the series’ stand-out characters. Like with Greta, she doesn’t really belong to any other corner of the DC Universe and is therefore free to have her character more deeply explored and fleshed out in the pages of YJ.

Early on, Arrowette is low-key portrayed as the most put-together of the team. She’s more relaxed and openly social than Robin, more focused and dedicated than Impulse, less posturing and arrogant than Superboy, and most visibly at-ease with herself than anyone, but especially Wonder Girl. This might well be chalked up to the fact that she has a therapist, whom she sees regularly and whois explicitly helping her work through the issues left by her mother’s clear abuse.

We’ll be seeing the results of that abuse sooner than you might expect, in a character arc that features one of the best critical examinations of the “legacy characters” concept to ever exist. Which is why I’m a little hesitant about the cartoon apparently bringing a character called Arrowette into their upcoming third season. I’m not going to dwell on it because I said I wouldn’t and, beside, the new season isn’t out yet so who knows how they’re going to handle it. It’s just a little frustrating that they built the entire series from the ground up to explicitly dismiss one of the comic’s core themes and are now trying to re-introduce one of the comic’s core characters who is built entirely around the examination of that theme.

Ugh. Okay. Be positive, be positive. Let’s talk about Wonder Girl.

Cassie Sandsmark is a fantastic character and, arguably, the one who benefits the most from Young Justice’s formation. Having only been active for about a year and a half out-of-universe, she and her mother Helena were still very recent additions to Wonder Woman’s supporting cast and hadn’t had a lot of opportunity for fleshing out though it was, admittedly, still more than Cissie got. But there’s really only so much characterization you can get as the teen sidekick only appearing in the book focused primarily on your older mentor, and from what I’ve heard a lot of people found her kind of annoying — which, I can understand. She was written as a problem child who’d been kicked out of several schools even before she got superpowers and Wonder Woman’s perspective would naturally be as sympathetic to her mother’s plight as to her own. It’s actually a lot of fun to see the difference between the actual events in the Wonder Woman pages and the self-aggrandized version Cassie tells a classmate in the Secret Files.

But Young Justice is where Cassie would really grow into her own, building confidence and friendships in equal measure and even turning the somewhat running gag of Wonder Girls regularly changing their costumes into a visual signifier of her character development. And we’ll see the groundwork for that laid in the next video, where we’ll wrap up our look at Book One of the collected trade with some epic speeches, a bold thesis statement and my single favorite comic book issue of all time.


	6. Book One, Part Four: Fireside

_(Originally posted January 7, 2019._

[Follow the YouTube link here](https://youtu.be/EFnSJQ2dVeU).)

I know this might seem a little…excessive, dedicating an episode this long to two issues, but trust me, it could’ve been more: when I first planned this series, I fully intended to discuss only Issue 7, my favorite single comic book issue of all time. It’s a major influence on me as a writer and really helped to shape my worldview when I was a teenager, so obviously I have a lot to say about it.

But then when I was doing my re-read leading up to this project, I came to the conclusion that I really can’t talk about the big, interesting, important themes of Issue 7 without also talking about Issue 6, because they really are two sides of the same coin. These issues mark the moment when the ongoing series finally got its pieces in place, ironed out the kinks, tied up the loose ends and was ready to make a statement about the team’s central identity and what the book would be going forward. And boy oh boy, did they ever make a statement.

* * *

Issue Six runs a bit non-chronologically, but its story picks up right where Issue Five left off, with the Justice League confronting YJ — specifically the boys, as the girls haven’t technically joined yet — about their recent reckless behavior. There’s some cute fourth-wall leaning here, when it’s pointed out that they’re perceived as a Junior Justice League but act “more adult” when they’re apart. Which makes sense — the _Robin_ , _Superboy_ and _Impulse_ ongoings were all aimed at the assumed “standard comic audience” of men in their 20s and 30s, while YJ was explicitly targeted at a younger teenage audience.

The Super-cycle revs in with an emergency alert, which, after some posturing between Impulse and Flash (who really didn’t get along at the time) turns into a challenge: the boys have 22 minutes to deal with the threat by themselves. If they can’t, the team will either be stuck with a Justice League chaperone for all assignments or scrapped entirely.

The arrive at the scene to find a three-eyed purple monster called Despero attacking a carnival. Despero is a Justice League villain with a fair bit of history behind him, but all you need to know here is that he’s a) an alien tyrant who b) got his spirit removed from his body under complicated circumstances and was, c) last seen in spirit form bothering Supergirl. His deal at this point is possessing other people’s bodies but using his psychic powers to project an image of himself to anyone he can see. So, while Young Justice and their local innocent standbys can see him just fine, the Justice League — who have sent an invisible Martian Man-hunter along to keep an eye on things despite previously saying that they trusted the boys to handle it — only see them taking on ordinary citizens and causing more trouble.

Meanwhile, Cassie and Cissie are stuck back at the cave, supposedly to “get to know” the Justice League (since they’re both more recently-established compared to the boys) but in practice being ignored while the League spies. Cassie gets a heart-to-heart with her mentor, where she admits that the reason she’s not wearing Donna’s old Wonder Girl costume is because she’s afraid of ruining or shaming it — like, “A little leaguer using an autographed Babe Ruth baseball in practice!” Diana expresses her concern that the boys are too undisciplined and “raucous” to be a good team for Cassie to join, and Cassie, despite looking like she wants to object, just…can’t.

Back at the carnival, Secret is revealed to have snuck along in one of Robin’s smoke pellets and confronts Despero herself while the boys deal with some freed circus animals. Despero — who’s doing all of this to lure out a suitable superhuman to possess instead of normal mortals — peers into her mind…only to recoil in horror, calling her “the Abyss.” Secret has no idea what he’s talking about, but this is the first real hint we get that there’s something more to her than just being made of smoke.

Shit soon hits the fan though as Despero manages to lure an unaware Manhunter into the open and possess him instead. With the connection cut off, the League wants to interfere against the terms of their agreement, and Arrowette — finally tired of being ignored — loses her shit.

> “You want them to fail! Admit it! You just want to crab crab crab. You even complain about how the guys act when they’re hanging with each other! So they rank on each other, razz on each other…that’s how normal teen guys are! Didn’t you guys have buds or sibs when you were teens? Guys you could bust on and know it didn’t mean anything? No, probably not! I bet none of you can claim to knowing what a normal teen life is supposed to be. Geez, you’re so judgmental you make me want to puke!”

And that, folks, is what we’re here for.   
…okay, yes, the attempt at teenage slang is kinda cringy and weirdly out of place, since the kids don’t really talk like that outside this moment. But it’s the content of the speech that’s important.

See, right before this issue came out, there was a three-issue JLA/Titans crossover event called “The Technis Imperative,” which featured basically the entire DCU. At the end of it, there was a brief cameo in which Young Justice posed the question: “If the JLA is the ultimate team and the Titans are the ultimate family, then what does that make us?”

This issue and the next hold the answer. Young Justice is not a Junior Justice League. They’re not a service organization or a symbolic union of respected heroes, or whatever you think the Justice League represents; nor are they some off-shoot of the League, black-ops or otherwise. Sure, they fight crime and solve cases together, but that’s not what the team is about: like Cissie says, they’re here mostly to hang out and just be kids together with other kids who can better understand what they’re dealing with. Fighting crime is just the thing they have in common, like an after-school program.

So, does that make them a family? Well, no, because as we’ll see in Issue 7, these kids don’t need any more family. They have a surplus.

But for the moment, Cissie says her piece — including blowing off Wally when he rather cluelessly tries to compare them to the Teen Titans — and storms off, followed by Wonder Girl. Cassie help Arrowette breathe through the minor panic attack she’s having over yelling at her childhood heroes and they pretty easily get over the minor antagonism that had been building between them. It’s start of a beautiful friendship as well as jettisoning the idea that they might be in a love triangle with Superboy, to everyone’s relief.

Back at the fair, the boys work together to expel Despero from the Manhunter’s body and Secret…um…makes him disappear. Put a pin in that for the next book. Back at the cave, the League has had a change of heart, Robin continues to lie like a motherfucker about Secret’s presence, and the JLA officially grants the team permission to keep using the cave…provided that Red Tornado (as their now-official adult supervision) hosts a parent/teacher conference. Because, in addition to being the youngest members of their respective superhero clans, all of these kids except Secret actually have civilian families.

* * *

Which leads us into Issue Seven, in which two story-lines run concurrently. In the first, the team goes camping (in full costume) as a bonding exercise. Meanwhile, Red Tornado hosts the parent/teacher conference at the cave. In attendance are Bonnie King-Jones, the original Miss Arrowette and Cissie’s mother; Dubbilex, a “DNAlien” whom you might remember from the cartoon, representing Cadmus’s interest in Superboy; Max Mercury, Zen Master of Speed, Impulse’s legal guardian and the closest thing he has to a father in the modern age; and Helena Sandsmark, Cassie’s mother and the curator at the Gateway City Museum of Cultural Antiquities.

As previously noted, Helena doesn’t really approve of Cassie’s superheroic ambitions, which immediately puts her at odds with Bonnie, who of course pushed Cissie into the job and is more concerned with marketing Young Justice than she is with the dangers they might face. This soon devolves into fistfight, which is only broken up by the arrival of Nightwing, who’s here playing Big Brother because, quote, Batman couldn’t make it. Tim at this point does have a civilian family in his father and stepmother, but they don’t know that he’s Robin and wouldn’t find out until well after this series ended. The struggle to balance his superheroic and civilian lives was a long-term driving theme in the ongoing Robin series, and it’ll bleed over even more here as time goes on.

Back at the camp-out, a game of truth-or-dare leads into some amusing shenanigans, including Impulse being unable to stay quiet for even a minute and Robin being dared to remove his mask only to reveal a second mask underneath. That in turn leads into one of my favorite sequences: a serious discussion about whether or not any of them would ever “give up” the superhero game.

This talk only lasts three pages, but it’s one of the best examples of succinctly establishing character motivation that I’ve ever seen. Yes, it’s basically a series of short monologues, but they’re damn good monologues that don’t linger for more than a panel and exhibit the absolute best of the characters, the things that make them relatable, lovable and real.

We start with Robin, who says he’d drop “the Game” in a heartbeat before clarifying that the only circumstances in which he feels he’d be free to do so is in a world that’s become a utopia, free of crime and innocents being threatened. Which is kind of brilliant. Yes, it’s another of his “Junior Batman” acts, to the point where I’m pretty sure Bruce has said the exact same thing in one past or another, but it’s also very true to Tim’s character. Despite the misinformation that sometimes gets spread, the fact is that Tim never wanted to be Robin, he wanted there to be a Robin, because he believes Batman needs one. And since Jason was dead and Dick wouldn’t do it, Tim volunteered. His primary motivation has always been his strong sense of duty: duty to his mentor, to his parents, to his responsibilities, to the world and to his own sense of justice. So he’s both putting on an act here and, inadvertently, being completely honest — he really would (and, much later, does) drop “The Game” in a heartbeat if his responsibilities demanded it; but that same sense of responsibility inevitably draws him back in, whether it’s what he really ‘wants’ or not.

After that comes Arrowette, who says that she would ask her mother’s advice…and then do the opposite, as she has no idea how much of “what’s in her head” comes from her own will and how much comes from her mother’s constant pressure. This is great when juxtaposed with how Bonnie’s handling the Parent-Teacher conference. While it’s made clear that Bonnie is an unreasonable diva of a stage mom who has no idea how much her parenting has damaged Cissie and doesn’t even know that Arrowette got hurt fighting Harm, she’s also the one who argues against hounding the kids with constant adult supervision. Her disregard of the danger in superheroics is clearly Not Okay; but she also has faith in Cissie’s ability to take care of herself and make her own decisions…provided they line up with what Bonnie wants too. Which, of course, raises the question: what’s going to happen when Cissie decides she doesn’t want the life her mother’s laid out for her?

Wonder Girl’s up next, giving the first of her stirring speeches, in which she essentially declares them to be inheriting the roles of mythical Greek heroes. This is the moment when I really fell in love with Cassie Sandsmark, and I don’t think I’m alone in that. Her attitude mirrors that of many fans, capturing the excitement you’d expect to feel from living the super-heroic dream. This is again contrasted by the reaction of her mother, who is perhaps overly concerned with “the Game’s” dangers to the point that she disregards her daughter’s raw passion. It’s a classic parental issue, wanting to keep your kids safe without stifling them. And Cassie’s very teenage desire for chasing her dreams within her mother’s limitations is equally classic and understandable. But I mean…for goodness sake. She was blessed by the gods. Who wouldn’t be excited about that?

Impulse’s input is quick, flippant and almost easy to dismiss: of course he’s not going to give up the game. Impulse isn’t an alternate identity, it’s just who he is. It’s who his family is, it’s where his beliefs and desires come from, and he wouldn’t be himself or even in this time period without it. But he’s also at least vaguely aware that the real world isn’t like that for other people, which begs the question of what will happen if and when the real world infiltrates his little bubble of obliviousness.

Secret’s part is likewise understandable — she doesn’t even have the choice to give up, given who she is and what she’s hiding from, and for her that’s much more of a burden than it is for Bart. But then we come to Superboy, who has his permanently-stuck-at-16 status revealed to the group. He immediately dismisses their sympathy and loudly declares how awesome it is to be a kid forever, shooting up into the sky with a crowing Peter Pan reference perfectly in-keeping with his brash, bellowing personality. And yet, even as he leaves them behind, all his friends see right through the facade; and they’re not the only ones. When he’s left alone, Superboy grows pensive, imagining that his shadows grows up and leaves without him. It’s worth noting that, at this point, Superboy had been around for about five years and spent most of that time trying to find his place in the world. Despite joining or founding a few other teams and organizations, his only lasting companion was his girlfriend Tana Moon, a much older reporter who would only continue to out-grow him as time went on. In this moment, we see that, for all his posturing, Superboy is…lonely. And maybe that’s why he’s keeping his posturing up around the others, to keep them at a distance. After all, every child eventually grows up…except one.

Back at the PT night, the various guardians have agreed to their children’s participation…only for the Missus Sandsmark and King to finally find common ground when they learn the girls went on a co-ed camp-out. They storm off to confront them, but chill out when they check the girls’ tent to find them being adorable and opt to leave any scolding for the morning, leaving Superboy to thoughts as we end off the collected Book One.

And oh man, what an ending. This is where the original trade left off too and, I’ve got to say, it’s the perfect spot for it. This is one of the cleanest “Act One” breaks to ever grace the pages of a serialized narrative, and I can’t stress enough how important that is to a good introduction arc. Over the course of seven issues (and one brief deviation), Young Justice cleanly establishes everything we need to know about the series going forward: its themes, its tone, its tone shifts, its cast and their motivations, its team dynamics, its values and, most importantly, why we as the audience should care. We care because these kids, for all their fantastic powers and unearthly origins, feel real and relatable. We see their promise and their raw passion and we want to see them thrive, to cheer them on as they overcome both the pressuring expectations of the world around them and their own personal demons.

But ultimately, Issue 7 is my single favorite comic issue of all time because it feels like an invitation. All these kids want is to hang out with their friends and have some fun, while occasionally kicking bad guy ass. And, in this intimate little conversation where the world shrinks to only the light of a warm fire, we the readers are being invited to do the same.

On Tumblr — before Tumblr imploded — my tag for the YJ kids is “my dearest friends,” because that’s honestly what this series always makes me feel. I was in middle school when I first found this team, and even now reading a good issue will bring back memories of being that age and hanging out with my friends. That’s what a really good YA series should do: capture the feeling of youth. Of friendship and potential and being young, comma, just us. And _Young Justice_ , for me at least, does that better than anything else; even as the first book ends and their adventures continue in volume two.


	7. Book Two, Part One: Dixon & Kali

_(Originally posted January 21, 2019._

[Follow the YouTube link here](https://youtu.be/ZfTjWxZ55LI).)

Sadly, Book Two of Young Justice gets off to a rough start, as we go from one of the best issues in the series to one of the...well, “worst” is a harsh word, but it’s Not Good. Issue Eight is bad, guys, not because it’s any way distasteful or offensive the way bad comics can sometimes be but because it’s just a waste. It’s a waste of time and paper and money and, frankly, I blame it all on its guest writer: Chuck Dixon.

For those of you unfamiliar, Chuck Dixon was, for quite some time, considered the Batman writer of the 90s. He had his fingers in literally everything to do with the Batfamily, including Detective Comics, Nightwing, Huntress, Birds of Prey, a huge swath of crossover events and, critically for us, Robin. As in, he wrote Tim’s first three mini-series and then, when those sold like crazy, the first one hundred issues of his regular ongoing. He was hugely influential on the character and on the shape of the entire Batman line of comics.

So why is his popping in for a one-and-done issue of Young Justice such a problem? Well, let’s see…

* * *

Issue 8 opens with a mysterious trio of blue-suited hackers breaking into Mount Justice and subjecting Red Tornado to his second violent short-circuiting in less than five issues. These three are Psyba-Rats, mostly-forgotten relics of the 90s whose primary claim to fame is being Chuck Dixon original characters. Originally a team of pre-Internet hackers — which means they spent a lot more time breaking into buildings than they did breaking codes — their first appearance in the 1993 Robin annual ended with one of their jobs going bad, resulting in one member’s death and two others being attacked by parasitic aliens as part of an intracompany crossover event. This activated their metagene, resulting in “Channel” becoming basically a sentient TV show and “Razorsharp” growing…razor blades. In place of her arms. Like a Scyther, three years before Pokemon became a thing. The third guy, “Hackman,” is completely normal. He’s literally there to drive the van.

They’ve broken into Mount Justice on a job to hack into the old JLA systems and steal information for a mysterious client, not realizing the the mountain is currently occupied by more than just the boys. Specifically, Arrowette is here on monitor duty. She gets into a fight with Razor and wins, only for Hackman to jump her from behind with a taser, leaving nobody to let the boys and Secret inside the locked main doors. Impulse uses his phasing to get inside but refuses to open the door until Robin and Superboy negotiate for…

Ugh.

Look, there’s just no way around it: I hate how Dixon writes the team’s interactions. Absolutely despise it. Sure, at this point, Robin and Superboy arguing while Impulse annoys them both is a well-established character beat, but in this issue and only this issue, it’s all dialed up to 11. Chuck Dixon’s Impulse is an obnoxious, self-absorbed flighty idiot who falls for Channel’s dumb hologram bullshit like a chump; his Superboy is a loud, bellowing dumb jock who cares more about missing a TV show than the fact that his friends might be in trouble; and with the way his Robin yells and complains it really feels like he can barely stand to be in the same room as these two idiots.

Though, to be fair, the Psyba-rats don’t get any better; I’ve read all half-dozen of their appearances and there’s not a single scene where they’re not yelling at or insulting each other. And I’d chalk all of this up to Dixon just not being very good at writing teenage banter, except that I’ve read a lot of his other stuff and it’s got the same issue. With rare exception, Dixon’s characters are angry all the time, always either lashing out or on the edge of doing so, and even when they’re supposed to be teasing there’s just something mean-spirited about it.

It’s especially jarring when contrasted with Peter David’s work, since he’s maintained a really good balance between “these kids annoy the crap out of each other” and “that’s just how kids are; look, see how important this friendship is to them.” And that’s especially vital when the entire basis of the team is literally just that they enjoy each other’s company. Dixon doesn’t get that, he writes them like one of the terrible generic teams that cropped up in the 90s, the ones that instantly failed because their excuse for sticking together was flimsy and nobody involved actually liked each other. It doesn’t suit the rest of the series at all and it makes Issue 8 a major slog.

So let’s get through it as quickly as possible: Secret slips inside while Impulse is distracted and frees Arrowette from where she’d been tied up. Superboy loses his temper and rips the door off the mountain, allowing him and Robin to arrive just in time for a final fight…which doesn’t happen, because Robin knows the Psyba-rats from their first few appearances, so they stand down the second they see him. Instead of the Justice League’s old data, the Psyba-rats agree to send back a stupid-looking custom YJ virus, and their mysterious employer turns out to be Blockbuster, a Nightwing villain who will never be mentioned in this series again. Which makes this entire thing completely pointless.

So yeah: I don’t like this issue. Dixon’s frustrating writing it not helped at all by some really terrible guest art from Coy Turnbull and Jaime Mendoza. That it’s all mixed in with the familiar quality stuff from Nauck and Stucker just makes it even worse. Also the colorist did this weird thing with Secret that gets points for innovation but ultimately doesn’t work; she looks like a printing error and trying to focus on her when she’s so blurry gives me a real headache.

* * *

Luckily, Issue 9 hops right back into the swing of things with the equivalent of a Criminal Minds cold open. A little girl, up late watching a cutesy children’s show, seems to lay a trap that ends with her mother taking a tumble down the stairs and right into a butcher knife held by her daughter. A rare but brief appearance from Tim’s father Jack establishes this as the fifth such incident in the last week, which lingers in Robin’s thoughts as he attends a Young Justice meeting, which is unexpectedly boys-only since Cassie and Cissie have been roped into babysitting for one of Cassie’s mother’s friends.

To get some peace from the “little monsters,” Cassie puts on a tape, which turns out to be of the same show as in the opening — the “Hugga-Tugga Thugees,” which looks to be like the Teletubbies re-skinned into a Cops & Robbers routine. While Cass is distracted talking to Superboy on the phone, the kids get into the knives and go after a sleeping Cissie, who manages to subdue them just in time for the mom to walk in and see her apparently pulling a knife on the four-year-old. Whoops.

This summarily gets Cissie arrested, though she and Cassie are pulled out by the others with a quick rescue involving the Super-cycle and some telling visual foreshadowing from Secret. Put a pin in that.

With YJ now on the case, they figure out pretty quickly that the “Hugga-tugga Thugees” are actually a vehicle for supernatural messages of a nightmare-ridden hellscape…

**Went to Hell Counter: 3**

...dominated by a black sun, visible only to the “innocent and pure of mind,” like Bart. This, plus the fact that the brainwashed kids were chanting “Kali,” points them to Calcutta and a, quote, “weird Thuggee cult” that flat-out tells them they intended to corrupt the innocent in order to bring Kali back to rule the world…

And yeah, to address the elephant in the room: this plot-point is about as culturally sensitive as an Indiana Jones movie, but it’s mitigated a bit by what the next issue reveals to be actually going on.

Anyway, the non-flying kids get dropped down a trap door, barely escape a liquid metal booby trap, and get sealed into a cave with…these creepy things. The real Hugga-Tugga-Thuggees. Meanwhile, the three remaining topside are left to see the face of Kali appear across the sun which I just now realized is another Teletubbies reference holy shit that’s hilarious.

Issue 10 picks up pretty much right from there, as Superboy and Wonder Girl get wrapped up fighting living statues while Arrowette, Robin and Impulse fight through the actual Hugga-Tugga Thugees in search of information. Impulse gets clocked hard enough to shatter his goggles — ouch — and when he comes out of the concussion to find Robin at his side he assumes he’s Batman. They’re soon confronted by the cult’s leader, a guy calling himself The Acolyte but looks an awful lot like the hero Blue Devil, who knocks them all out.

Up top, Cassie figures out that the statues she’s fighting with Superboy aren’t real, just more supernatural illusions, which leads to their first real moment of connection where Kon compliments Cassie on her brains and looks. Secret finds a way in through a crack in the trap door, but before Wondy and the Kid can follow by tearing up the ground they’re set upon by the massive Thugees.

Underground, Robin’s group has chained up and can’t get out because Bart still thinks he’s Batman (much to Robin’s aggrivation) and thus can’t remember how to vibrate through things. The entire gag is to justify this plot point and it’s worth it because it’s frankly hilarious. The Acolyte reveals that he doesn’t actually care about Kali specifically, he just wants to summon any god to replace “the one we have,” ie, the Judeo-Christian-Muslim one. Side note, it’s almost too bad that this guy doesn’t get a chance to talk to Cassie — you know, the girl who literally got her powers from the Greek Gods.

The Acolyte sends out Kali’s signal, turning all the children who watched the Thugees special into a mind-controlled force that attacks their parents with the intent of sacrificing them to summon Kali. Robin gets loose from his bonds and, with the help of a distraction from Arrowette and Secret, knocks the Acolyte down to size while Superboy and Wonder Girl take out the tower broadcasting the signal. Bart remembers that he’s Impulse in time to rush himself, Arrowette and Robin out of the cavern before it all comes down on their heads, and the team is relieved to know that they’ve completed the mission…with a sad hook for the next plot, but we’ll get into that next time.

Honest to god, I kinda love this whole storyline. There’s not much to it in terms of deeper meaning; within the ongoing narrative, it’s really more of a breather episode interspersed with some nice character beats. But it’s a fun little adventure within the established status quo, very reminiscent of a good stand-alone Teen Titans episode.

And I have to say, given that this is the only chance they have to build Superboy and Wonder Girl’s relationship before certain…things happen down the line, I think they do a good job. There’s a noticeable difference in how Kon talks to Cassie compared to the way he hits on other women. Even Arrowette presumably caught his eye first for the short skirt and bare naval of her costume, rather than her capabilities as a crime fighter. But Cassie only catches his eye here after showing off her talent and passion for the work they share. And they even hold hands for the last attack, it’s just cute.

Also, there’s something weirdly sweet about Bart’s perception of Batman. Yes, the act is only there so he won’t end the story early, and it’s nothing but a broad riff on the Adam West version, but dammit, he keeps calling Robin “old friend” like the non-douche version of Jay Gatsby and there’s just something sincere drawn straight into his eyes. Maybe it’s just because his goggles are broken so he looks a bit more vulnerable.

So far as villains go, it’s almost a shame we never see The Acolyte again. He’s an interesting concept for a character, particularly once we get to the final page and see that he’s actually a normal-looking guy, he just wore the devil make-up for effect. Sure, he’s got all the subtly of a sledge hammer and his specific fixation on the Abrahamic god is weird in the way it’s always kind of weird to hear that subject treated the same as in our world in a setting where multiple other pantheons exist; but, y’know, I’ve seen worse takes. And having one guy go around trying to swindle cults into ending the world is an interesting take on a super-villain.

My one big complaint is that they don’t explain what in hell these Thuggee things actually are. Are they robots? Aliens? Demoons? The actual historical thugee cultists kept alive by dark magic and wearing mascot costumes for a laugh? We just don’t know! They’ve got be something non-sentient because nobody cares when they get buried in the end but beyond that, there’s nothing.

Ah well. It ultimately doesn’t matter. They serve their role in the story and set up for things to come, and that, at the end of the day, is all they really needed.

Next time: the fallout from this little misadventure takes a direction you probably weren’t expecting, and we get a visit from Supergirl.


	8. Book Two, Part Two: Raising Heck

_(Originally posted February 4th, 2019._

_[Follow the YouTube link here](https://youtu.be/6yHPV2LW_fY).)_

Before we get into Issue 11, we need to backtrack a bit and cover a subplot that I’ve been skipping over to streamline the summaries. Since Issue 3, Red Tornado has been making an effort to reach out to his human wife, Kathy Sutton, and their adopted daughter, Traya. As mentioned in Issue 1, Tornado had lost touch with his human side — the man named “John Smith” — and been isolating himself from all of humanity as a result, including his family. But with the boys re-igniting his capacity for emotion, the first thing he does with any and all free time is reconnect with his family, culminating in a sweet family dinner teasing the possibility that they’ll all be reunited.

Unfortunately, Traya got caught up in the Hugga-tugga-cult-y shenanigans during Issue 10 and, in pursing her mother with a knife, knocked Kathy out of their apartment window, where she plummeted several stories to the ground. As Issue 11 begins, Red Tornado receives the news from Kathy’s doctor that she’s alive, just in a coma, and that there’s no way of telling when or if she’ll be able to wake up.

In light of this, Tornado tries to take Traya home, only to be informed by social services — and, for some reason, Fite ‘N’ Maad, who flat out admit to stalking Young Justice on behalf of A.P.E.S. — that, as a robot, he doesn’t technically count as a living relative, and thus has to go to family court to win custody rights.

We then cut to the kids, who have turned an underground…lake-thing, in the Justice Cave, into an indoor swimming hole. You may have noticed that we have another guest penciler for this issue, Angel Unzueta. I like his art better than I did Coy Turnbull’s, especially the dramatic shading, but there are still some issues, particularly on the weird proportions he gives the girls, which are on full display here. Again: these kids are, at most, sixteen. Don’t freaking do this, comic artists, it’s creepy.

Anyway, the art doesn’t take away from the sweetness of this scene, where Cissie suggests they give Secret a normal-sounding nickname, to go with everyone else, since “Robin” works as a normal name, and Superboy now officially boasts the Kryptonian name Kon-el. Cissie offers up “Susie” and calls it “one of her names” which is both strictly true — Cissie’s full name is, apparently, Suzanne — and, given that she apparently hates her own name calls herself different things in her head, is an early indication that cool, confident Arrowette isn’t quite as put together as she seems. The scene also establishes that “Suzie” is afraid of water, yet another thing to put in a pin in for later — I’m sorry I keep saying that, but the gradual reveal of What Secret’s Deal Is is a big part of these early story arcs.

Back with Red Tornado, the judge assigned to his case turns out to be a condescending bastard who not only refers to John Smith as an inanimate object but specifically likens him to a stolen car and thus decrees that Traya has to go into social services. When Traya responds badly, crying out for her father in a genuinely heart-wrenching scene, Tornado responds by snatching her up and trying to fly off with her, only to be stopped by a force field installed by Fite ‘N’ Maad, who turn out to have been planning this all along to get their hands on Red Tornado for mysterious reasons.

YJ hears the news and calls in to offer Tornado their help, only for him to turn them down because he doesn’t want the team’s reputation to be smeared. It takes about a page for the others to convince Robin to go anyway, and can I just say that I really like this as a re-affirmed character trait?

One of the little things that’s always set Tim apart from the general perception of teen heroes is that he’s not a rebel by nature. Even in non-superhero fiction your standard teen protagonist tends to be kind who assumes that rules are stupid and that anyone in authority is just trying to hold you down and that’s why THEY have to be the ones to get things done. And teen superheroes in particular have no shortage of middle-aged creator dudes trying to lecture about how ALL teenagers are lying rebels at heart, just waiting for a chance to sneak off to smoke and drink and shit.

But Tim is well established as not being that kind of guy. Given how he became Robin and the way his training took place in the shadow of Jason Todd’s death, it makes perfect sense for him to be very aware of how some rules are there for his protection, and others are boundaries that people set for their own protection. Which isn’t to say that he doesn’t break rules. He absolutely does, when he has good reason. It’s one of the things I’ve always related to him over; especially when he’s given to a good writer who knows the Trade Secret of the Teacher’s Pet: a reputation as “the good one” comes with authority figures’ benefit of the doubt, which means you can get away with anything.

In this case, the others pretty easily persuade him that helping a friend is always a good reason — which is a recurring theme in this series — and thus they decide that, since Young Justice can’t be seen helping Tornado out, they’ll just have to go in in their normal civilian clothes. Well…I say normal, but the guest artist has Cissie and Cassie in these ugly impractical crop-top things that make zero sense for their characters. Cissie might wear something like this — she does flaunt the naval in her costume, after all — but Cassie? No way in hell. And again, sexualizing minors. Yuck.

They arrive on the scene to find that A.P.E.S. has completely taken the place over, and that they’re about to lower a section of the field to allow in more of their agents. The team sends Secret in to form something big and scary as a distraction and, as she’s “been watching a lot of CNN,” she chooses a gag that’s somehow as hilariously topical now as it was 20 years ago.

Young Justice bum-rushes the gate and splits up, Impulse running to get in touch with Red Tornado as Superboy heads to the roof to see about disabling the force field. Robin, Wonder Girl and Arrowette take up positions near the entrance in order to fight off the A.P.E.S. while Secret flits off to the still-unconscious Kathy Sutton to do…something we’ll get to in the next issue. The rest of Issue 11 is taken up by what is actually a really fun and well-paced fight scene where Young Justice fights off the A.P.E.S. while staying out of sight (and thankfully not getting shot in the process) while Superboy tricks A.P.E.S. into letting down a portion of the force field by lighting himself on fire which, um, should actually hurt him because he’s vulnerable to non-tactile things like fire and electricity but whatever, it gets the job done. A.P.E.S. lowers part of the force field to send in the airborne fire brigade, giving Red Tornado a chance to grab his daughter and GTFO.

Young Justice reunites in the court room, just in time for Fite ‘N’ Maad to burst in yelling “Freeze!” leaving the issue on a cliffhanger.

* * *

Issue 12 picks up right at that moment, revealing that A.P.E.S. has burst in to an empty courtroom. Young Justice has escaped by holding on to Impulse and letting him vibrate them down through the floor. This is one of Impulse’s signature moves — not the taking-people-with-him thing, but the vibrating-through-objects thing, since it’s one of those secondary powers that most Flashes eventually master but Bart does instinctively. It helps to back up the idea that, for all his Impulse-iveness, Bart is ridiculously powerful by Speedster standards. I honestly don’t know if Wally could pull off this move, especially with four other kids hanging off him, two of whom are completely normal (so you’d have to be careful to not scramble their brains in their skulls) and two of whom are varying levels of invulnerable, which means you have to put in even more effort to push them through the space of solid objects.

So it’s more than understandable that, when they come out the other end to drop into the courthouse cellar, Bart is on the verge of literally shaking to pieces, which is honestly kind of terrifying. Luckily, Cissie snaps him out of it by pretending to proclaim her love for him, which startles him enough that he shuts off.

Without an exit strategy, the team opts to risk calling the Super-cycle, which they only didn’t use to phase in because the thing has a mind of its own and went off without them, possibly (as Arrowette suggests) because it sensed someone who needed help and went off to find them. The kids suit back up before Robin tries to whistle and, luckily, gets a response, with the team phasing down even further just in time for Fite ‘N’ Maad to miss them completely.

One underground, the Supercycle again asserts its independence and drops the kids in a cavern, “locking down” to force them to stay. With no other recourse, they follow the cavern to the end and emerge into…

Hell. Yes, really, it’s disco Hell. Disco diet discount Hell…

**Went to Hell Counter: 4**

…that they’re not allowed to call Hell for some reason, complete with fiery pits, forced labor and endless depths of torture, all of it 70’s themed. It turns out to be run by this guy, “Dante,” and his army of flying demon monkey minions who insist that no, really kids: we’re on the same side.

Meanwhile, back at the hospital, Kathy Sutton has gone into life-threatening convulsions. Within her mind she walks a beautiful field and begins to head towards the proverbial light, only to be stopped by Secret, who manifests to warn her of Traya and John’s situation. Before she can quite convince Kathy’s spirit to stay, the doctor attempts defibrillation, which forces Secret out of Kathy’s body screaming “No! No electricity, never again!”

She disappears, but luckily, was successful in bringing back Kathy, who wakes up and asks to speak to her husband. Red Tornado has made it back to the Justice Cave with Traya, but fears that, logically, he won’t be able to care for her if they have to live their lives as fugitives. He’s contacted by Fite ‘N’ Maad, who’ve arrived to patch Kathy through to him via spy-tech. Kathy convinces John to bring Traya back, as she wants to officially declare him her legal guardian and to bring their family back together. Tornado and Traya enthusiastically agree. Drained and traumatized from her efforts, Secret curls up in a corner at the hospital and falls into a deep sleep.

Back with the kids, they get a lecture about Dante’s back-story: how he found the cavern full of his “little winged friends,” who feast on pain and misery. He then turned to people he felt deserved punishment — including several people Robin recognizes as criminals — drugged them, and dragged them down to not-hell while using their financial assets to fuel his operation.

Luckily, Young Justice has some actual fucking morals and intend to shut Dante down, only for him to sneak-attack them with the tiny demons, whose whole gimmick is “monkey on your back” mind control. Superboy, thanks to his tactile telekinesis, is able to fight his off and engage Dante in mid-air combat, only for Dante to call in the big guns — this huge critter that he calls “a gorilla” — to smash Kon into the ground.

The issue ends off with Traya, Kathy and Red Tornado being reunited as a family…only for the authorities to reveal that they were lying to Kathy, and intend to arrest Tornado on various charges. Red Tornado surrenders himself peacefully and is carted off to jail, unaware of what’s befallen his young charges.

* * *

“Heck’s Angels” is actually a crossover storyline with Peter David’s other DC book at the time, Supergirl. Which means we now have to take a quick second to Explain 90s Supergirl.

Remember back in the Origins video where we talked about DC’s embargo on Kryptonian characters leading to Superboy’s convoluted backstory as a heavily-modified but otherwise purely human clone? Same kinda deal’s going on here. Supergirl was originally re-introduced post-Crisis as MATRIX, a shape-shifting being from an alternate dimension who eventually merged minds with a dying human woman named Linda Danvers. She’s got telekinetic powers kinda like Superboy and big flaming wings. Peter David was in charge of the story that took her from Matrix to Linda and, similar to what he’d been doing with Secret, was in the process of gradually revealing her secret mysterious REAL back-story when this crossover went down.

I’m going to skip over the parts that are clearly touching on sub-plots for Supergirl’s supporting cast because that’s not what we’re here for and anyway there’s still three issues to get through in this story arc so we have to keep moving.

So, Supergirl’s been having these dreams of an angelic figure called Ember, and a few people have even called Supergirl herself by that name after seeing her flaming wings. While out fighting crime with her companion Comet — who is and also is not Comet the Super-horse, long story — they spot one of Dante’s “flying monkeys” trying to latch on to a supporting character, a local priest. Supergirl manages to get the “monkey” off the priest with her fiery heat-vision and she & Comet chase it down into a cavern beneath the earth.

There they find a “Chaos Stream,” a tributary of the River Styx that, quote, “Induces chaos and horrific events from under any place it runs” — apparently, Supergirl has seen these things before. She shoots off to follow it, leaving Comet in the dust where he’ll quietly exit the storyline. She arrives just in time to find Superboy eating dirt, and can I just say that I really like how these two pages are basically identical, just with different artists and little more context? It’s a nice touch.

Supergirl and Superboy team up to fight the big “gorilla” dude, which ends with Superboy discovering that the wings are metal and deciding to rip them off, since the big guy is clearly a robot. And then it turns out that, no, he’s not a robot: the wings were just grafted on, which Superboy has just enough time to feel bad about before a mind-controlled Wonder Girl knocks him into a wall. This gives another flying monkey the chance to latch on to Superboy, which means that now all five solid-bodied members of Young Justice are attempting an all-out attack on Supergirl, leading into the next issue.

* * *

In Issue 13, Supergirl realizes that there’s no way YJ can be in their right minds, because otherwise Robin — y’know, the squishy normal human guy primarily known for his brains — wouldn’t be attempting an all-out assault on someone wearing the “S” shield. Supergirl attempts to burn off Robin’s flying monkey the way she did to the priest, only to find that, since these little demons have had time to merge completely, injuring the “monkey” is only going to hurt their hosts too.

When the fight puts some of the captive civilians in danger, Supergirl uses her flaming wings to block the falling rubble, resulting in one of the captives — an innocent woman from Supergirl’s hometown — calling her “Ember.” In case you’re wondering, Supergirl’s actual deal is that, in merging a super-powered being with a mortal human, Linda Danvers and Matrix have become an “earth-born angel.” As in, a literal angel, specifically a servant/chosen of the merciful feminine aspect of the divine. “Ember” is the name of her angelic manifestation, not that she’s going to learn that here.

Back with Red Tornado, he quietly rejects an offer from the Martian Manhunter to have the Justice League intervene on his behalf, shortly before being approached by Fite ‘N’ Maad. A.P.E.S., it seems, has an offer for him: give them the oh-so-dangerous “mist girl” and they’ll use the organization’s influence to get him out of jail and back with his family. Red Tornado doesn’t bite. Damn, but he’s a great den-mother.

He’s then approached by an older married couple, who introduce themselves as “Mort and Amelia Hebbert” a pair of activists — and Amelia, confusingly, tells him that the “original” Red Tornado was her mother. They claim to be looking out for the well-being of kids like Young Justice and leave Tornado with a business card, our first introduction to a name that sounds like a joke but, trust me, is actually very serious.

Down in Dante’s Inferno, the mind-controlled YJ takes advantage of Supergirl’s distraction fighting Dante to head topside and start wrecking up her hometown of Leesburg; starting with a political demonstration by sports hunters that I assume is a response to criticism of a joke that I skipped over in Issue 7. Short version is, Peter David and I have the same opinion on sports hunters: they’re jackasses. So I feel absolutely zero regret in watching our heroes wreck their shit.

At the same time, hearing music on a radio sends Secret into a genuinely chilling dream; one in which she is a normal girl, taking a relaxing bath and listening to music in the safety of her home, when an unseen someone — implied to be an older sibling — comes in and throws the radio into her bath. The electrocution brings her around with a scream, and Kathy Sutton recognizes the girl from her dreams, only for Secret to burst through the window, screaming that she just wants to be left alone.

And back with Supergirl, the surroundings start to take on a decidedly icy look as she battles Dante to a standstill. It looks like she’s gotten an upper hand, only for the source of Dante’s power — a lava-creature called Dis — to burst from its containment and attack, ending off the issue.

* * *

The story concludes in Supergirl #37, where Supergirl attempts to re-contain Dis, only to find her fiery wings and powers starting to freeze over. Dante takes advantage of this to start beating the shit out of her, though in a nice touch it’s threat against other people — specifically Young Justice — that inspires her to stand up and keep fighting. What can I say, I’m a sucker for “big sibling” instincts.

The freeze-out of her powers continues to put Supergirl on the ropes, leading this creepy guy — apparently, a demonic entity called “the Carnivore,” who’s being set up as Supergirl’s big bad and is the one who created Dis in the first place — to gloat that she’s being pushed to the point where she’ll kill her tormentor and “fall”…only for Dis to burst from his container in an attempt to murder Supergirl himself, spilling out into the cavern brutally burning Dante alive.

Up top in Leesburg, the mind-controled Young Justice have continued their spree of destruction by tearing open the local jail, setting all their various imprisoned convicts free. Arrowette and Robin, while giving back-up from the outside, get the demons insta-zapped off their necks by the Super-cycle and team up with it to rescue all the Supergirl supporting characters before either the criminals or our mind-controlled heroes do them harm. They lure the rest of the team outside, where the demons thankfully get zapped off their necks too, and, at the request of the local police chief, Impulse ties all the criminals back up before they can escape.

With the Super-cycle’s help, Young Justice dives back into “the Inferno” just in time to be the “deus ex machina” Supergirl needs to get all the captives to safety. There’s a dramatic escape that’s really fun and well-paced for only taking two pages, and the kids all emerge back in Leesburg to find Fite ‘N’ Maad already waiting for them. Thankfully, that subplot is delayed yet again as Dis follows them up…only to suddenly freeze completely solid, just like Supergirl’s powers. Dis crumbles to pieces, with the only explanation coming from the Carnivore himself, who turns to his lackey and whispers in horror that hell is freezing over.

* * *

But that’s a story for next time, because this video is long enough already. Suffice it to say that, for as much as “Heck’s Angels” is really more of a Supergirl story than a Young Justice it’s still entertaining as hell and you don’t actually need to read Supergirl to get the gist — I haven’t, though it is one of the series on my reading list because frankly, Peter David is amazing. My one complaint is, that this being the cosmology he was clearly working into the DCU — one that’s much more fantasy adventure than biblical — just makes the Acolyte’s specific fixation on the Abrahamic God from last time all the more confusing.

But whatever. This whole thing is a great romp and a lot of fun, with Issue 11 in particular being exquisitely paced. The subplot of Red Tornado’s person-hood and parenthood is really compelling, and goes well with themes we’ll be seeing throughout about the relationship between parents and children. And the slow drip of Secret’s true back-story is one of the most compelling through-lines in the entire series, one that we’ll be seeing come to fruition next time.


End file.
